Car Wraps and Bad Driving

Don't drive angry!

My husband and I were driving around Clearwater, FL in a vain attempt to get to a restaurant for a relaxing evening.  Unfortunately, we chose rush hour as the time to leave the house.  So we waited in stop-and-go traffic for a good hour before we could even get near our destination.  In that hour, we witnessed a Ford Excursion zipping in and out of lanes, cutting off other drivers, running people into berms and slamming on the brakes.  It was bad enough that this person was clearly impatient and being a total disrespectful jerk.  What made the whole ordeal worse was the large magnetic sign on the back and the sides of the truck, advertising a locally owned roofing company.

We managed somehow to get next to the truck so that I could take pictures of the offending vehicle and email the company about the driver's unsafe automobile handling.  Just as I raised the phone to snap the picture, I noticed a little blonde girl at the wheel, texting with one hand, gesturing with the other and yelling at the car in front of her.  Without looking, she jerked the wheel to the right and gassed it, plowing into the lane next to her.  When she realized that there was a car there, she yelled again, jammed the truck into reverse, gassed it again, and violently repositioned the truck back into her original spot.

Suffice it to say, even if we owned a house, we vowed never to go with that roofing company for any of our roofing needs.

We all road rage.  We all have been guilty of waving at others with one finger instead of five.  I've yelled, I've seethed.  It's going to happen.  But if you have advertisements for your business on your vehicle, smart money's on, you won't put a good impression in other drivers' minds if you're flipping them the bird.  In this case, I'm almost positive that it was a relative of the company's owner who had borrowed the truck.  Whether she forgot to take off the advertisements remains to be seen.  In any case, I have kept myself from purchasing any car magnets or decals for this one simple fact: a good day can turn bad in a day spent in traffic.  Even though I'm considered a "granny driver" and have yet to receive a ticket for anything (my last ticket was 12 years ago), I still get nervous on the roads.

Driving with a car decal or magnet is prime opportunity for advertising, especially in traffic, when we're all sitting, waiting for a light or an accident to clear.  It's a great idea.  But more and more, I'm seeing pizza delivery drivers, small business owners, even government employees driving recklessly in traffic.  If you're going to grab yourself some car decals to advertise your small business, please keep in mind who is going to be driving your car (if the decals are permanent), and your own patience level for stressful situations.  Don't forget that you are constantly representing your company.

Thank you!